competitor
(noun)
A person or organization against whom one is competing.
Examples of competitor in the following topics:
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Competitor-Based Pricing
- Competition-based pricing describes a situation where a firm has a pricing policy that reflects the pricing decisions of competitors.
- Sometimes this simply takes the form of a firm copying their competitor's pricing and not conducting their own pricing research.
- Competitor-based pricing is purely reactive.
- Companies that employ competitor-based pricing can use computer programs such as this to analyze market share.
- Show the basis of competitor-based pricing as a general pricing strategy
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Monitoring Competition
- Companies must monitor competition in order to make intelligent marketing decisions based on how competitors operate.
- As a fundamental practice, marketing companies must thoroughly understand their competitors' strengths and weaknesses.
- This means more than making sweeping generalizations about the competitors.
- Often the identification of competitors is fairly straightforward.
- There are instances, however, when the identification of a competitor is not clear.
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Competition
- Competitive analysis starts with identifying current and potential competitors.
- For example, who are General Motors' competitors?
- If you named companies like Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, and Honda, you are right, but you have just begun. outlines some of General Motors' competitors, and outlines some of Nintendo's competitors.
- If competitors are defined too narrowly, there is a risk that an unidentified competitor will take market share away without the company's knowledge.
- A company's strategy must address all competitors, not just the leaders in a field.
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Predatory Pricing
- Predatory pricing is the practice of selling a product or service at a very low price, with the intention of driving competitors out of the market, or create barriers to entry for potential new competitors.
- After chasing competitors out of the market, the incumbent would have fewer competitors (and may in fact be a monopoly), and can then - in theory - raise prices above what the market would otherwise bear.
- In any case, competitors may be driven out of the market before the case is ever heard.
- There must be substantial barriers to entry for new competitors for predatory pricing to succeed.
- But the strategy may fail if competitors are stronger than expected, or are driven out but replaced by others.
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Price Competition
- Many organizations attempt to establish prices that, on average, are the same as those set by their more important competitors.
- Many organizations attempt to establish prices that, on average, are the same as those set by their more important competitors.
- Pricing above competitors can be rewarding to organizations, provided that the objectives of the policy are clearly understood.
- Historically, one of the worst outcomes that can result from pricing lower than a competitor is a price war.
- Price wars are often caused by companies misreading or misunderstanding competitors.
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Conducting a Situational Analysis
- The competitor analysis takes into consideration the competitor's position within the industry and the potential threat it may pose to other businesses.
- The main purpose of the competitor analysis is for businesses to analyze both the current and potential nature and capabilities of a competitor to be prepared to compete against them.
- The competitor analysis looks at the following criteria: identity competitors, assessment of competitors, and future initiatives of competitors.
- The task of examining the competitor's financial and marketing performance is one of the responsibilities of a market analyst.
- Strategy consultants occasionally use the five forces model to scan for and identify competitors to conduct qualitatively evaluate a firm's strategic position.
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Training Programs
- Effective training and coaching of a firm's sales force can help it outperform competitors.
- Superior sales managers learn that effective training and coaching help their companies outperform their competitors.
- This includes benefits to using the product, product specs, and competitor information.
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Competitive Intelligence
- Competitive Intelligence (CI) in marketing research involves defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing information about products, customers, and competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization.
- Although the term CI is also considered synonymous with competitor analysis, competitive intelligence extends beyond analyzing competitors.
- CI seeks to make the organization more competitive relative to its entire environment and stakeholders: customers, competitors, distributors, technologies, and macro-economic data.
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Other Inputs to Pricing Decisions
- Factors to consider in pricing include Economic Value added to Customers (EVC), competitor's pricing, and government regulations.
- Therefore, to sell a product, a firm needs to price at or below its competitor's price plus the value advantage its product has to the customer over the rival product.
- Relative to buying two servers from a competitor, by buying one doubly efficient server from our company a firm would save $4000 in labor costs, $500 in electricity and $1,500 in software licenses.
- The price of two servers from the competitor is $6,800.
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Adding Value
- Value, in this sense, can be defined as the relationship of a firm's market offerings to those of its competitors.
- To reveal the company's strengths and weaknesses compared to other competitors, it is important to conduct a customer value analysis.
- Assess the company's and competitors' performance on each attribute and benefit.
- It is important to be honest with yourself about who your actual closest competitors are and how they price their products.
- Examine how customers in the particular segment rated the company against major competitors on each attribute.